The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-01-20
FLOWER LORE.

How the Philosophy of People Imprinea
Itself on the Surroundings of Life.
To this day the flower lore of Europe
remains strongly associated with Chris
tian mythology, and from the way
flowers mixed themselves with legends
of the Virgin or St. John the Baptist
we may learn how, in an earlier epoch.
they entered into the stories of Zeus,
Hercules, Indra or Osiris. AS the
caroub bean came to be called St.
Johns bread, gooseberries his grapes,
and the wormwood his girdle, so in the
Vedas, one plant is known as Indra' s
food, and another as his drink. Just
as in Roman times numberless
plants were named after Hercules,
it would be difficult to enumer-
ate all the plants which claimed to
be Our Lady's tears, her tresses, her
mantle, or her smock Thus does the
general philosophy of a people tend to
imprint itself on the common sur
roundings of life. In the flax fields of
Flanders grows plant called the rood
selken, the red spots on whose bright
green leaves betoken the blood which
fell on it from the cross, and which no
subsequent rain or snow has ever vet
been able to erase. In Palestine the same
account is given of the colors of the
red anemone, and in Cheshire of the
spots on the orchiS nadcukata. The crown
of thorns has in Germany given to the
holly (holy tree) the name of Christdorn,
while in France it has caused the haw-
thorn to be called the noble thorn"
Qepine noble and in Italy it has been
associated with the barberry. Catholic
fancy believed that the st. Johns wort
showed red spots on the anniversary of
the beheading of the Baptist. and per-
ceived in the passion flower of Peru the
resemblance of nails. In the same way
the Turks see in the geranium mallow
that was touched by the garments of
Mohammed, while the Chinese see in
tea leaves the eyelids of a pious hermit,
who, to resist his inclination to sleep,
cut them off in despair and threw
them away. There is, however, a
rather remarkable monotony IN the
poetical fancies about flowers to
which their various peculiariti,s have
given rise. White flowers, as a rule,
spring from tears, red ones from
bushes or from blood. Thus il. Bion's
Idyl, anemones represent the tes.s shed
by Venus for Adonis, while lilies-of-the
valley are in France the Virgins tears.
Catullus has it that the rose Is red
from blushing for the wound it inflicted
on the foot of Venus as she fastened
to help Adonis; but, according to Her.
rick, roses lost their whiteness when
after being worsted in comparison of
their whiteness with that of Sappho's
breast, they blushed and '.first came
red" So in Ovid, the fruit of the null
berry was originally white, till, after
witnessing beneath it the sad suicide of
Pyramus and Thisbe, it blushed for
shame forever. In Germany the heath
owes its color to the blood of the
heather slain in the sanguinary con-
versions of Charlemagne; the inhabi-
tants of the uncultivated fields, where
the heath fheide) grew, coming to be
called heather, fhside,J much as in
South Europe the inhabitants of the
villages remote from the influence of
the church came to be called pagans
from pagns. a village; so that our word
heather appears to be a derivative
from our word heath. - GentIeman's
M10G zine